Wikileaks reveals “carve up” of Arctic resources

Wikileaks has released Secret US embassy cables showing Arctic Council nations are racing to “carve up” Arctic resources like oil and gas, now accessible as the ice retreats.

The Arctic Council member states are, Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland.

The US Geological Survey estimates oil reserves off Greenland are as big as those in the North Sea.

The leaked cables claim the Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller joked with the Americans saying “if you stay out, then the rest of us will have more to carve up in the Arctic.”

Greenland is an autonomous Danish dependent territory with limited self-government however, the cables show that US diplomats believe Greenland “is on a clear track to independence” and see this as “a unique opportunity” for American gas and oil companies to get a foothold.

The then US Ambassador to Denmark James P Cain said in the cables that he introduced Greenland’s government to New York financiers “to help the Greenlanders secure the investments needed for such exploitation”.

The US embassy cables also expose US concerns about Canada’s territorial claims to the North West passage and to “seabed resources that extend to the edge of the continental shelf”.

They show that in 2008 the US embassy in Ottawa asked Washington to delay a new presidential directive requiring “the United States to assert a more active and influential national presence to protect its Arctic interests”.

Officials were worried that if it was released before the Canadian federal election the Arctic would become a big election issue and “negatively impact US-Canadian relations”. The directive was in fact delayed till after the Canadian election.

The cables also report Canadian Premier Stephen Harper telling Nato to keep out of the Arctic – an issue where he is in agreement with Russia.

Since the 1970s, Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University has made repeated trips under the North Pole in Royal Navy nuclear submarines to measure the thickness of the ice.

He says the graph “has gone off a cliff” because the ice sheet has thinned as well as shrunk.

The Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modelling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) which measures ice volume shows that last September there was only a quarter of the ice in the Arctic that there had been in 1979.

Prof Wadhams says in summer “it could easily happen that we’ll have an ice free North Pole within a year or two”.

Newswarped is not surprised by the revelations that the major powers are eyeing up the resources in the Arctic region. They are just doing what comes naturally. Putting their individual interests at the top of the agenda and little stuff like climate change is pushed to the fringes.

Creating wealth is the top priority for the big players like the United States and Russia. It is something they act on with great enthusiasm.

Things like environmental protection are relegated to the category of ‘something we only talk about’. Short sighted politics and greed have got the world into a struggle for survival were even the rich nations will be brought to their knees.